| Women's Work: An Anthology of African-American Women's Historical Writings from Antebellum America to the Harlem Renaissance Contributor(s): Maffly-Kipp, Laurie F. (Author), Lofton, Kathryn (Author) |
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ISBN: 0195331990 ISBN-13: 9780195331998 Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA OUR PRICE: $34.19 Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats Published: December 2010 Annotation: Whether in schoolrooms or kitchens, state houses or church pulpits, women have always been historians. Although few participated in the academic study of history until the mid-twentieth century, women functioned as primary translators and teachers, offering explanations, allegories, and scholastic narrations of the past. Though often lesser known that white women in the historical literature, black women wrote textbooks, pedagogical polemics, popular poems, and sermons assessing ancient Ethiopia, contemporary Liberia, the role of the female historian, and the future of the black race. This anthology aims to bring together approximately sixteen writings by African-American women between 1832 and 1920, the period when they began to write for American audiences and to use history to comment on political and social issues of the day. The pieces are by more familiar nineteenth-century writers in black America--like Maria Stewart, Francis E. W. Harper, and Alice Dunbar-Nelson--as well as lesser-known mothers and teachers whose participation in their local educational systems thrust them into national intellectual conversations. Each piece will have a headnote providing biographical information about its author as well as contextual information about its publication and the topic being discussed. The volume will contain a substantial introduction to the overall enterprise of black women's historical writings. Because the editors are both trained in American Studies and religious history, their introduction will particularly highlight religious themes and venues in which these writings were presented. This book should appeal to general readers of books like those in theSchomburg Library series, as well as those who work and teach American history, African American studies, womens studies, American literature, and American religious history. |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Literary Collections | American - African American - Social Science | Ethnic Studies - African American Studies - Social Science | Women's Studies |
| Dewey: 973 |
| LCCN: 2010010246 |
| Physical Information: 0.7" H x 6.1" W x 9.1" (0.70 lbs) 240 pages |
| Themes: - Sex & Gender - Feminine - Chronological Period - 19th Century - Ethnic Orientation - African American - Topical - Black History - Chronological Period - 1900-1949 |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: Whether in schoolrooms or kitchens, state houses or church pulpits, women have always been historians. Although few participated in the academic study of history until the mid-twentieth century, women labored as teachers of history and historical interpreters. Within African-American communities, women began to write histories in the years after the American Revolution. Distributed through churches, seminaries, public schools, and auxiliary societies, their stories of the past translated ancient Africa, religion, slavery, and ongoing American social reform as historical subjects to popular audiences North and South. This book surveys the creative ways in which African-American women harnessed the power of print to share their historical revisions with a broader public. Their speeches, textbooks, poems, and polemics did more than just recount the past. They also protested their present status in the United States through their reclamation of that past. Bringing together work by more familiar writers in black America-such as Maria Stewart, Francis E. W. Harper, and Anna Julia Cooper-as well as lesser-known mothers and teachers who educated their families and their communities, this documentary collection gathers a variety of primary texts from the antebellum era to the Harlem Renaissance, some of which have never been anthologized. Together with a substantial introduction to black women's historical writings, this volume presents a unique perspective on the past and imagined future of the race in the United States. |